Victorian Costuming

Monthly Archives: May 2015

No broken legs at this weekend’s Doors Open event at the old jail but I will admit to some really sore feet!

Saturday was a freakishly cold day and I claim full responsibility for that. I was afraid that being dressed in black from head to toe would be hellish in the heat so I prayed fervently for cool weather. It worked and Shirley and I found we needed our capes and even with those we were still a mite cool. Sunday was normal temperatures and I was correct…it was hellish. (More pictures from Sunday to follow.)

Now I sit on my couch, my throbbing feet up, a lap top in front of me (so I can catch up on the modern world), a bowl of ice-cream to my left and a puppy to my right. I will savor my evening in the knowledge that the tour went well: we set a new record for number of folks put through and most seemed to really enjoy the event! Who should I play next year?

My city is having its Doors Open event again. For Doors Open, several historic buildings are being opened up to the public. This means that buildings that usually have a fee (eg. house museums) are free and buildings that are used as office spaces are allowing non-staff and non-customers to come in and have a look around.

The site that I work at is the old jail built in the 1880’s. The jail is basically gutted now with it being mostly empty except for some storage and a couple of office spaces. A friend of mine has a vision of it being converted into a tourist attraction with some restoration, some history and some sort of cafe or bar. This has been done in multiple places in Europe and even the states. But for now, the public only has access to it during this annual weekend event.

The jail has several local historic figures connected to it as well as several groups of humanity. My friend has arranged that amateur actors such as myself play characters in several of the gutted rooms so the tourist can imagine what it was like to work in or be incarcerated in this jail at that time.

I have played Dr. Amelia Yeomans one of the first women in Canada to hold a medical degree (second only to her daughter).I have played a prostitute who would have been put in jail for plying her trade.This evening I will be helping to set this year’s event up and practicing my role as a family member collecting the body of one of the prisoners. The point of this role is to talk about what funerals were like back in the day and to point out that prisoners would be dying in there from diseases, violence, child-birth and hangings. I will be wearing my mourning outfit and Shirley will also be playing a mourner in her gown.

Hopefully, we wont be grinning like Cheshire cats while playing our roles! Wish us a set of broken legs please!

There will be a display of 1880’s dresses from the Costume Museum of Canada at my favorite local house museum. I have much joy in all of this for three reasons. 1) the display will be during Doors Open which I really enjoy. During this event the doors of historic buildings are thrown open and folks are allowed in to see some of our “lovely’s” that might only be open for employees of business’ housed in them. 2) The house museum I mentioned above, where the display will be, had some issues a couple of years back and the possibility of it being closed down and converted into some sort of office space (HORROR) was considered. My hope is that they are going to attempt the museum route once more and Door’s Open is a toe in the water. Fingers crossed! 3) Well, who doesn’t love 1880’s dresses!

I will be sharing some of these dresses with you as I get good photos of them. The first is a dress for a young teen.

So that Battenburg Lace hankie is not going to plan. It seems that the ink from the pattern is transferring onto the lace so now it looks grubby and there is a possibility it wont clean up well. (If I were to do this again, I’d put a layer of tissue paper between the print and the lace so I can see the pattern without the ink transferring. Read on to figure out why I might not do this again.)

The hand sewing is boring…. And the stitches, though more exciting look like crap. It looks like it is being done by a blind 5 year old. But the thread would look so nice as a needle tatted lace and needle tatting goes so quickly and looks so nice! Sigh, so now I am distracted by some needle tatting….that totally does not meet the next challenge goals for HSF, which is try something new.